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How to Remove Gorilla Glue from Hands

This article will show you how to remove gorilla glue from hands the easiest way.

What is Gorilla Glue?

When you search the internet for the best bonding glue, a majority of the results from your search will suggest Gorilla Glue. At first, you might brush it off thinking that it is a product used in zoos and the likes. But far from it, Gorilla Glue is a high quality adhesive known to be the toughest in the world. The glue not only works well on various surfaces and in multiple environments but it also bonds quite fast and strongly too.

Well, your excitement using the Gorilla Glue can be short-lived when it gets stuck on your hands or skin. The efficiency of the glue is undoubted, but when it gets to your skin, you had better take it off quickly as it can be pretty damaging and uncomfortable.

But like they say, every tough thing has a weak point. This glue is the strongest adhesive known to DIYers, but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be weakened from the skin.

How to Remove Gorilla Glue

As earlier stated, removing Gorilla Glue from hands is not easy and not impossible at the same time. You just have to follow the right methods and use the correct items to ensure that the glue is off your skin.

How to remove Wet Gorilla Glue

How to Remove Gorilla Glue

It is easier to remove glue from hands while it is wet. However, we already know that Gorilla Glue cures pretty fast and forms solid bonds. This means that you need to remove the glue immediately it gets on your hands to minimize its effects.

Here is how to do it;

1. Wipe the glue

Using a wet washcloth, wipe away all the wet glue off your hands. Do this gently and quickly to prevent the adhesive from curing.

2. Exfoliate

Exfoliation is essential here because wiping alone won’t remove all the glue. But before you do this, wash your hands first with lots of soapy water until you can feel the tackiness of the adhesive going away.

Once you are done with the rinsing, gently exfoliate your skin using an exfoliator. Just ensure that the process is as gentle as the product you are using. If you don’t have an exfoliating product at hand, you can use sugar powder or fine salt mixed with oil. For this, just combine the two ingredients and rub them on the affected areas until the glue comes off. If the adhesive would have dried at this point, then gentle exfoliation won’t be as effective.

Before proceeding to step 3, remember to rinse your hands again to remove the exfoliating products.

3.  Moisturize

Moistening is a crucial step here. Why? Gorilla Glue reacts fast with skin cells. Therefore, once it gets into contact with your hands, it will possibly bond with a thin layer of your skin cells by the time you are removing it. So, removing any cured glue from your hands will also remove a thin layer of your outer skin cells stripping your off skin its natural oils and leaving it vulnerable to cracking and the likes. To avoid this, you should moisturize your skin to restore as soon as you are done with the exfoliation process.

Washing as in step 1 and after step 2 will also leave the skin dry. Thus you will have to apply some moistening lotion on it.

How to remove dried Gorilla Glue

Again, Gorilla Glue cures fast and once cured it can be pretty hard to weaken it. On your hands, the glue will probably react with your skin’s cells making it even harder to remove and quite painful too. So before you embark on removing the dried glue from your hands, you might want to wind up your projects first. Clamp up the bonded surfaces and clear your working area.

It is by now evident that this is a process that will require extra effort and patience. You need to be patient because the process takes longer than with wet glue. You might have to wait for days before the glue is completely off your skin.​

Here is the process for this;

1. Exfoliation

Unlike with wet glue where you can try washing with soap and water, cured adhesive won’t come off at the touch of water and soap alone. You will have to be harsher with it. In this regard, you will need a less gentle exfoliating product to remove the glue. With this, you just apply it on your hands and rub slightly hard and fast to free your skin off the glue.

Alternatively, you can use pumice (beauty stone) to rub the glue off your hands. Pumice can be found in beauty stores, and they are quite affordable too. With pumice, you just have to rub the affected areas with it until the glue weakens from your skin.

If you can’t get access to pumice, you can use your kitchen ingredients to make an exfoliating product for yourself. Use coarse sugar or salt particles mixed with some oil. Rub this mixture on the affected areas until the glue weakens off the skin.

Also, a washing brush can be useful in this case. Just rub it on the affected areas as you would on clothing; only that you will need to be gentler with your skin lest you want to rip it off.​

2. Moisturize

Again, moisturizing is very important, especially when removing hardened glue from the skin. Removing dry glue as mentioned earlier will require harsh methods and ingredients and thus will leave your skin drier and to some extent irritable. To ease these, you will need to apply lotion on any other moisturizer to lock in its moisture and restore it to its normal state. However, do this after you have rinsed off the exfoliating products and ripped off glue first.

Note: for dry glue, we mentioned that you would have to be a little patient for the glue to come off your hands entirely. This means waiting for days while doing regular activities that will see all the remaining glue gets off gradually.

Additional tips

  • Removing Gorilla Glue is not only limited to exfoliating and moistening. In worst case scenarios where both methods fail to work, you can try using isopropyl alcohol. This is quite effective with most types of adhesives and will surely work fast at removing glue from your hands. Acetone based products like nail polish can also be useful in such cases. Just apply a small amount of the remover on the affected areas and wipe until the glue is completely off.
  • With these two products, however, you have to be careful especially if you have sensitive skin. Alcohol and acetone are quite harsh and can thus leave you with skin irritations. Moistening is therefore quite vital here.
  • When using Gorilla Glue with bare hands, avoid rubbing your eyes as the wet glue can be detrimental.

Conclusion

Gorilla Glue might be toughest, and many peoples’ ideal bonding glue in the world, but can also be a nightmare if it gets into contact with the skin.

From our discussion above, you can tell that it is even worse when the glue dries on your skin as removing it can be a hassle and painful too. Therefore, as a responsible DIYer, do not put yourself in the above situations by using Gorilla Glulte with bare hands. Always pay attention to the basics of using bonding glue especially the safety and precautions part. By this, I mean that you should wear protective clothing when handling the adhesive to avoid some of it getting to your skin.

Nonetheless, the above methods can be pretty helpful in removing the glue from your hands; they are some of the easiest and most used ways where removing Gorilla Glue from hands is concerned.

Charles Larson

Hi, I’m Charles Larson. We do everything we can to support our readers with hundreds of hours of research and comparison testing to ensure you find the perfect tool for your workshop.

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